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Coffee With an Indian - TAS 48
194 Plays6 years ago
The Coffee With an Indian Podcast, hosted by Brian Melendez, is a raw look at growing up and living a tribal lifestyle. Brian weaves an emotional narrative of his life that is sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and always instructive.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Archaeology Show
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to the Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
Guest Introduction: Brian Melendez
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the Archaeology Podcast, episode 48. I'm Chris Webster, and April is off for this episode.
Interview: Brian Melendez's Background
00:00:22
Speaker
On today's show, I talk to the host of the Coffee with an Indian podcast, Brian Melendez. Let's dig a little deeper.
00:00:32
Speaker
Alright welcome to the archaeology show and we've got a little bit of a special show today because I don't think on this particular show we've talked to another podcaster before aside from some other people maybe on the APN.
00:00:46
Speaker
Who I'm going to bring on now is, is somebody who's doing a podcast that I would say, uh, our archeological audience, uh, people interested in archeology and history would probably be interested in, um, just to get a real personal perspective for this sorts of thing. And who knows where his podcast is going to go in the future when he's, when he's done telling his story, but who I'm bringing on is Brian Melendez from the coffee with an Indian podcast. Welcome to the show, Brian. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Chris, for having me. Um, it's a pleasure.
00:01:13
Speaker
outstanding, outstanding. So I met Brian, I think it was January, February. Yes, it was around that time. Yeah. I had my very first workshop for teaching people how to podcast. Brian showed up, had a lot of amazing questions and it was just, you could tell his enthusiasm for what he wanted to do. And I wanted to talk to him to begin with because we're going to talk probably about your work and your personal life, but you used to work with the BLM and
00:01:38
Speaker
I work closely with the BLM as an archaeologist here in Nevada, of course. So there's some cross issues there that we could talk about. So I wanted to bring you on another podcast, but once you started your show, I definitely wanted to get you on this one for our broader audience. So it's something they could go check out. So if you haven't done it yet, check the show notes. You'll see a link to Brian's page, and then that will take you to the podcast. And he's got a couple of flavors of the podcast, which we'll talk about a little later.
00:02:04
Speaker
But let's do that right now since this is about the podcast.
Purpose of Coffee with an Indian Podcast
00:02:09
Speaker
What is your podcast about in brief? What's your elevator pitch for your podcast? So here's my like eight second, five second elevator pitch.
00:02:18
Speaker
I'm a tribal person, obviously. I'm Northern Southern Paiute, Western Shoshone, I'm from Reno, Nevada. I created a podcast that I want people to be able to listen to, to understand what the modern cultural dynamics of tribal people are currently in this country. And maybe some of the endeavors that most people wouldn't think about is when they're imagining what an Indian life would look like.
00:02:43
Speaker
Okay. So let's, let's take this back a little bit because on your podcast, it's a lot of really personal stories. There's no interviews yet. It's just you and you're, you're really kind of telling your story. And I think I feel like giving a foundation for who you are. I think I don't know how many episodes you have out as of right now. I'm about to release my seventh tomorrow morning.
00:03:02
Speaker
Okay, so I think I'm caught up with listening. I'm pretty sure I'm caught up. I'm really behind on all my shows, but I'm pretty sure I'm caught up on yours. And they're what, 15 to 25 minutes long? Yeah, for the most part. Yeah. So they're bite-sized. They're really easy to consume on a commute or a workout or something like that. Although some of them deal with some pretty heavy subjects and it's really personal and you really don't hold anything back, which I really appreciate. So let's talk about first, just to kind of set the groundwork here, where
Heritage and Family History
00:03:30
Speaker
did you grow up? So you're a Reno native.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. I was born in Reno, Nevada, January 3rd, 1980. I was born here in the city. My father was a transplant here. So he came from Alturas, California, which is where he was born. My mother was born in Ely, Nevada. So her family was from Nevada, but both of my families, even though they were all Paiute in nature, they lived in different states and they didn't necessarily live in Reno per se. They got here.
00:04:00
Speaker
by way of their parents looking for work and taking jobs. And even though they were tribal people, absolutely. And they had the cultural dynamic of even the tribal people who were here, they weren't from here. And when they got here, they just made their home. And it was at that particular time when they had met each other and then squeezed out a couple puppies and then here we were.
00:04:24
Speaker
Nice, nice. Yeah, the Paiute, for those that don't know, they're pretty wide ranging in this area. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And so for the Paiute people, there are Paiutes in California and Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah,
00:04:41
Speaker
So it's a really extensive tribal culture and the language itself is part of the Yuto Aztecan language family, which goes all the way up north into like Washington and goes all the way down far south into Mexico, Central America. So it's a pretty familiar language dynamic that most tribes in this part of the country are familiar with. And so we share a lot of the same language conventions of Shoshone people or Comanche people or Aztec people.
00:05:11
Speaker
So between Brian's parents meeting and squeezing out a few puppies, as he says, I love that phrase, between there and, and working for the BLM, a lot of that is covered on your podcast and I don't want to give too much of that away.
Role in Indian Affairs
00:05:24
Speaker
Absolutely. And so let me, let me correct that. It's, uh, I worked with the BLM, but I specifically was dug in with BIA, Indian affairs, right? Yes. Indian affairs, even though a majority of our issues were land-based issues, we worked exclusively with the BLM.
00:05:40
Speaker
However, my function was really specific in the area of all the non-tribal trust. So I deal exclusively with people. So my particular area was like the human capital portion of the tribal governments, the federal governments, and all the tribal citizens.
00:06:00
Speaker
Well, that's what I wanted to get into next. So what, I mean, what exactly did you do for them? Like what was your function? So the best way to put it now, I love analogies, so I'm going to go all analogy. And so for the, for those of you who are going to listen to my podcast, you're going to get a lot of analogies because there are moments where.
00:06:17
Speaker
I really want to be able to convey what that information is. And sometimes the direct information, even if it's direct, sometimes it bounces off in different directions and people don't really understand it. But most people understand analogies because I want to make sure that you are able to understand things that are similar to your life and things that make sense to you. And so what I did in Indian affairs, my job was I was basically the cleanup guy.
00:06:44
Speaker
So anytime something strange should occur in between the conversations between tribal governments and the federal government, I was the guy they sent in.
00:06:56
Speaker
And so it could have been anything from some type of financial debacle to some type of really strange cultural dynamic that there really isn't anything written about. So for tribal people, when we think about anything else that occurs, now I'll give you an example of it's BLM. Let's just use that for an example. Somebody wanted to create a road or somebody wanted to transfer
00:07:22
Speaker
Bureau of Indian Affairs land into BLM land into private land into fee simple fee patent land, whatever that transference would have been, it would have all gone through the same different systems. I mean, even though that the government itself is very different in their function,
00:07:43
Speaker
their branches and divisions all have to work interdependently to make a thing happen. So even though something on the BLM side wouldn't be something that we would work with every day, it was stuff that we would work with all the time. And then in the instance that something happened,
00:08:00
Speaker
with the tribes, they would call us in and say, hey, look, we have this issue and we don't really know how to work with it. If it's a BLM, so if somebody, like a private citizen of the country, somebody wanted to create a road through Bureau of Land Management land, right? This federal land, they would have to go through a process and they would have to fill out some type of form. I'm sure it was like BLM form, you know, one, two, three, ABC, and you have to fill out a form and you have to go through a process. And there are all these internal mechanisms that
00:08:30
Speaker
Bureau of Land Management has so that way a person can do a thing. Right. Now, these are things that cover all people. So it's not Chris specifically. It doesn't directly address him as an individual. It just it addresses people, citizens at large. Now, Indian Affairs is the only bureau or division in the whole federal government that deals exclusively with a population. There is no other entity in the government that deals exclusively with a population.
00:08:59
Speaker
And so the relationship that the federal government has with Indian affairs and the tribes themselves is absolutely a political governing relationship. So it's a government to government relationship that occurs at that platform. And it's not a race based situation, but it's entirely a political governing mechanism.
Challenges in Indian Affairs
00:09:20
Speaker
So that thing itself requires somebody to be some type of mediator or somebody who's going to speak on behalf of the government in whatever that circumstance. Now, the analogy that I'm using again is if you go fill out form ABC123 for BLM, when we're dealing with Indian tribes, very often there is no form, very often there is no law or real regulation that
00:09:49
Speaker
that is created to identify some of these things that are happening as these things are occurring. Nobody created it. Not Congress, not Senate. There's not anything written in law, which is interesting because we still operate that way. So we're still operating that way even today as the federal government is having these interactions with tribes.
Sharing Tribal Stories
00:10:12
Speaker
There is nothing written or there's nothing really formalized to make sure that a thing can occur. So a lot of times we're just operating a good faith from one party to a next to make sure a thing can happen. And as we were doing that, we are creating the laws and the precedents and everything as we're going. So a lot of my job was to do that. A lot of my job is to go in and problem solve and help create a path to go from A to B.
00:10:38
Speaker
where the tribes were happy and the federal government was happy. And so in the process of doing that, again, there's a lot of, I have a lot of discretion in the job. And so there were those moments where it had become really stressful because
00:10:58
Speaker
not everybody understood how fluid this thing was. Because a lot of the times the tribes themselves had understood, like most people would in this country, I would assume that there's a system and a form for everything. We just assume that. But for Indian affairs and the tribes, BLM even, there are things that nobody has created. So when a person, a tribal person asks, well, why doesn't this thing happen? Or why can't that thing happen?
00:11:24
Speaker
It probably could, it's just nobody had created it yet. So when it's dealing with Indian issues, nobody had created it yet. So I guess if I was to think about how that operates right now in a modern setting in conjunction to the archaeology work that you do, I would try to relay it this way. Our tribal people have created petroglyphs to tell stories for us. Our dreams and visions and our purposes in all of our ceremonies we believe are inlaid in that.
00:11:54
Speaker
And at some particular point in our life, we will decipher those things for ourselves. So it's almost similar. We are trying to decipher and interpret legal jargon, right? Semantical information to make a thing. And it's kind of like that. If I'm trying to spiritualize like the work, that's what it seems like from time to time.
00:12:17
Speaker
So I did that work. I did it for a number of years and I got really, I don't want to say I got tired of the work because I really liked what I did. I loved what I did. Let's say that. It was kind of different every time. It was different all the time and it was one of these jobs that it wasn't boring. I never got bored. I never
00:12:34
Speaker
had a situation where I didn't have a lot of things to do. I was the only operations officer in my region, which was like a three state region. And I was the only operations officer on the ground. And so the government used me for every agency. And in my region, we had, I think, 14 agencies. So I could bounce around from agency to agency dealing with all different tribes.
00:12:58
Speaker
within the West Coast in, again, lots of different tribal customs and rituals and beliefs. And so those things are absolutely
00:13:10
Speaker
pivotal in the job is having an understanding of how the cultural mindset works and having an idea of how the tribal cultural people work and do things because the language and culture and ceremony is still very much included in the government. So that's why they hire somebody like me to go in and do that work. So I know how to operate in both hemispheres.
00:13:34
Speaker
one that is a very rigid federal system and the other, which is a very loose and, um, let's just say different type of government. It is not the federal government. Well, and I think something that a lot of people probably assume incorrectly is that, you know, we, we tend to lump, uh, tribal groups in this country. And what is it? There's something like over 500 different, the numbers, depending on who you talk to were so different, but culturally there's a lot of,
00:14:02
Speaker
independent Native American groups and even here, and we lump them all into Native American or Indian or whatever you want to call it, and even here you say you're, you know, Paiute in ancestry, but we know in Nevada, I don't care if you're white, if you're Indian, if you're whatever, you go from one valley to the next and you've got a completely different culture. There's like different Paiutes on the other side of the mountain, yes.
00:14:25
Speaker
And then they think differently, they probably have slightly different customs and courtesies and rituals. Absolutely. Every single thing we do now is transparently put out that way. And there are these tangible elements of our culture that exist there. And most people don't understand that because I think that
00:14:44
Speaker
we're taught, you know, when we're, we're children, we go to elementary school or we're taught and saying, well, you know, there's a chapter on the Indians and it's like, well, there's all of them, but they don't understand that, you know, we're talking about hundreds of hundreds and thousands of different languages, not even just like a language. I mean, thousands of different languages, even in those like 568 federally recognized tribes, there are hundreds of subgroups within those tribes. So, I mean, there, there's the,
00:15:14
Speaker
the absolute government, the governing body itself, like the official tribal governing body that makes the connections with other governments. But then there's the cultural body of the people and how they do things. And so in Nevada specifically, we have 27 federally recognized tribes in the state of Nevada.
00:15:33
Speaker
And even within a hundred mile circumference around Reno, where we are right now, there's several really large tribes and you're talking about thousands and thousands of tribal people everywhere. And so it's a, it's a major hub. And those are the types of things that I truly want to relay and just imprint on people's minds when they, when they listen to this podcast, when they're listening to coffee with an Indian, I want them to understand that.
00:16:00
Speaker
this type of experience that I want to share is something that just like this, I have a cup of coffee. You got me a cup of coffee. Well, thank you. I'm going to drink this coffee. We're having coffee with any of you right now. It's very symbolic because these are the types of things that we do with our relatives. When we're told as tribal people about our cultures, when we're told about how we learn language or songs or customs or stories, when we're taught as tribal people in our families,
00:16:26
Speaker
how do you get that information? Somebody will always almost tell you, you need to go sit with some so-and-so and talk with them and do that. And how do you generally do that? You sit across from them and you share food or coffee or cigarettes or whatever it is that the people do.
00:16:43
Speaker
and you have these experiences and people are going to tell you these amazing things and they're going to tell you things that you don't know. And that's what I wanted to do here is I wanted to take that tribal mindset of transferring information and give it away to the world. And I wanted to be able to give this away so that way people would have a better and a greater understanding
00:17:09
Speaker
of maybe the internal workings of tribal people today.
Platform for Tribal Issues
00:17:14
Speaker
Now granted, again, I can't generalize this stuff for all people because that's not what it is. My experience is entirely my experience and there are lots of people that have different experiences, but I do know that a lot of the content in which I'm discussing
00:17:30
Speaker
really, really does hit the mass majority of people in the country who are living on reservations and living in these tribal communities because we are dealing with some really significant issues and there really isn't a forum for those things. So I wanted to create one.
00:17:48
Speaker
And so here I am and I've created it and I'm working on it. And as it goes, it'll keep getting larger and I'm hoping to gather some type of traction where people are going to be able to understand a little bit more about why we might feel the way we do about a thing. And that is why with the podcast exclusively, I began, I began telling the story.
00:18:15
Speaker
from a narrative standpoint, because I didn't want to.
00:18:21
Speaker
have a panel per se where I'm just having these conversations and then it just comes off as, Oh, well that's just this isolated opinion about a thing. I wanted people really to understand why I felt a certain way about a thing. So if it was a matter of suicide or, you know, hunger or poverty or anything, whatever it is that the human beings are dealing with on a daily basis,
00:18:48
Speaker
I wanted my audience and the people to know me, to know that I'm a human being and that I'm a very flawed human being in many ways and I don't have all the answers.
00:19:01
Speaker
I've waited for as long as I could for somebody else to show up and create a system where they had answers, but it didn't happen. So I was, I was very inclined at that moment to say, you know what, I'm 30 years old and I can't wait anymore for somebody to create a thing and make a thing and do a thing and, and lead me down a path. There's really nobody to do that for me. So I'm going to have to do this thing. And that's what I did.
00:19:22
Speaker
All right. Well, that's a good spot to take our first break. And before we do that, I'll just mention that there is one other government body that, for lack of a better term, regulates a population. It's the United States and that population is middle-aged white males and that body is called Congress. Yes. That is actually a thing. Unfortunately. Yeah. That's a very real thing. Well, we're going to take a sip of coffee and we will be back in just a minute to continue talking about the coffee with an Indian podcast. Go check it out.
00:19:55
Speaker
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00:20:13
Speaker
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00:20:44
Speaker
Welcome back to The Archaeology Show, episode 48. And we are talking with Brian Melendez, the host and creator of the podcast, Coffee with an
Podcast Versions: iTunes vs Patreon
00:20:53
Speaker
Indian. So Brian, before we go much farther, let's bring it back to the podcast. So you have two flavors, I will say, of the podcast. You have one that you can get on iTunes and one that you can get on Patreon. So let's talk about the iTunes one first. You've already talked about what the podcast is, but just to restate it again to separate the two. Okay. Tell us about the iTunes one and then tell us about what is it, Coffee with an Indian Black, I think. Yes.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yes. Okay. Well, let's first start off by we, we know that I'm an Indian because I said we're going to have coffee with an Indian. Um, and obviously seeing as how coffee is like right in the title, it's like the first word.
00:21:28
Speaker
The designation of the name for the podcast, Coffee with an Indian, was something that I do regularly, right? So I'm drinking exorbitant amount of coffee all the time. And I can't stop drinking stuff. I love it. So it's just part of my life. And when people visit with me and I'm hanging out, we're just drinking coffee anyway. So I figured it sounds nice. It's pretty strong. Let's run with it. I love it. And so Coffee with an Indian. Now,
00:21:54
Speaker
during the conceptual phase of trying to figure out how I was going to do this. And a lot of this came mainly from the idea that I didn't know how to technically have a podcast. I didn't know what to do. So when you had the course and I came and I was really excited, I learned a lot. So there was a lot of things inside of your course that
00:22:16
Speaker
as far as like the real practical application of creating anything, you did a really good job. And I really, I mean, obviously did a great, I was able to run with it, right? I was able to take what you taught me, look at it, and then make sense of it. And one of the, one of the most pinnacle things that I thought came from that experience was because I didn't know much about it outside of listening to several podcasts and trying to understand it, I didn't understand
00:22:43
Speaker
I guess maybe how relevant the thing that I was going to create would be in the podcast world. Because I wasn't sure if there was some type of conventions that had to be followed for podcasts. And I think that one of the things that you said to me that day that really stayed with me was that there's not
00:23:04
Speaker
very many podcasts that will be created that are like the one that I'm describing. Because in the moment you asked me that question again earlier, it's like, well, how would you define this thing? And there's so much cultural identity in this process.
00:23:21
Speaker
And there isn't anybody that I know of doing something like this within Indian country where people are just kind of taking the liberties and making these statements or proclamations or trying to like draw these like linear connections with whatever it is that we're doing and living with. So when I thought about that after I left the training,
00:23:46
Speaker
I really did take those words that you said to my heart, which was, you know, you could really just pioneer this thing because there's really nobody who's done this. So like, you don't have to follow any particular roadmap. I mean, you really can do whatever you're going to do. And so I thought about it and that really resonates with me as an individual and my own way of functioning.
00:24:08
Speaker
Because that's very much how I function. I like to think that I'm a creator of sorts. I love to think about things. I like to make things, even in my previous job, it's just problem solving, finding a way. And so I wanted to find a way. So going back to what I mentioned earlier, which was I really do believe I need to tell this story, tell the narrative before I go into the interview process. But then I started thinking about the tribal people that were going to listen to this.
00:24:38
Speaker
or the people in general, not even just if they were tribal people, but just regular people. And I started thinking about people that would listen to a podcast and if I was going to omit certain language or certain context or certain
00:24:54
Speaker
material, mainly I drink a lot of coffee and I cuss a lot. So do I really want to be flying off the handle with as much cussing as I normally would in my natural environment? So what I did was I thought about this a little bit and I figured I would make two different versions of the podcast.
00:25:15
Speaker
And I didn't know if that was a common thing. I had no idea what it was going to look like until I started like working on it and building. And so what I ended up with was Coffee with an Indian, which is the principal podcast, right? That's it. So Coffee with an Indian is the name and idea of this thing conceptually. And so Coffee with an Indian is a podcast. Coffee with an Indian is a very
00:25:42
Speaker
It's very detailed. It's a comprehensive story and it's somewhat middle of the road as far as certain energy that I'm trying to convey to the public. But then I also felt that I needed something that had more of a raw fill, something that had more intensity, something that was truly a platform for me to say the things in which I wanted to say, which I really
00:26:09
Speaker
For the whole basis of starting a podcast, I wanted to be able to say what I needed to say. And even when I thought about saying what I wanted to say, I still ended up with two podcasts, right? Somewhat, right? Because what I ended up with was Coffee with an Indian.
00:26:24
Speaker
and the more raw, extensive, rated R version, which is Coffee with an Indian Black. So when I said Coffee with an Indian, I was like, all right, here's the story. And then I say, whoa, there's Coffee with an Indian Black. So let's say there's a 15 minute podcast called Coffee with an Indian, episode two.
00:26:43
Speaker
Well, there's probably going to be a 25 minute version of coffee with an Indian episode to coffee with an Indian black is the extended version of that. And, but real quick, are you recording these twice or are you editing the black version down into the non black? Yes. So what I'm doing is I'm creating the long version, which is the black version first. So I do the black version first with all the, all the language and content and stories, and I put it all together.
00:27:09
Speaker
exclusively on one track. And then I go back through and I remove some of those elements that are probably a little bit too harsh or a little bit too dark. Because there are parts of the story, and hopefully whoever's listened to this, you guys will listen to this, and
00:27:31
Speaker
understand that what I'm talking about, there are parts in it that are funny and there are parts that will make you laugh or kind of make you like shake your head, but then there are also some really dark elements to it because I'm talking about life and I'm talking about families and I'm talking about
00:27:47
Speaker
death and all different types of things that occur in a person's life. So lots of these things aren't very pleasant. And so if it really comes down to something like that that is really difficult to absorb, then I felt that it was really a judgment call at that point where I was just thinking, this is a really interesting break. I'm going to go ahead and take this out and I'm going to put this over there. So because I've done it on the Patreon platform,
00:28:16
Speaker
And because I'm talking about tribal cultural information, I haven't even begun talking about some of these other things that are extremely like sensitive. Even though I'm talking about like real unique personal things, there will be parts in this story where we're absolutely
00:28:33
Speaker
becomes that. It becomes somewhat taboo against tribal norms. It becomes something that tribal people themselves don't want to talk about. It becomes stuff that nobody has ever truly discussed in an open platform like this. So even if I was to talk about it right now, let's say I was going to talk about tribal spirituality or was going to talk about whatever it was.
00:28:57
Speaker
that maybe my own communities and people wouldn't want me to discuss or disclose. If I was on like an iTunes type of platform or Stitcher or Google Play or wherever I'm at, would there be a possibility for my listeners or people who are watching this thing to somewhat like
00:29:17
Speaker
combat what I'm saying or do what I'm doing or interfere in the process. And so I didn't even want to run the risk. So what I did was I entirely isolated Coffee with an Indian Black on the Patreon platform and turned it into a subscription based podcast. And by doing that, I have total free range.
00:29:38
Speaker
And there is nothing that anybody can do to stop the thing in which I'm saying. So not my tribes, not my people, not my community, like nobody. It's entirely a raw environment and I can do what I need to do and say what I need to say. And so the hope is, and this is the vision. So the vision is
00:30:01
Speaker
I'm going to tell the story from my perspective, the narrative that I'm telling.
Incorporating Personal Stories
00:30:06
Speaker
Eventually I will be done with that exercise. And when I'm done with that,
00:30:10
Speaker
the next step. And I've, and I've thought about this and this actually just came to me. I was like, I was sitting on a lake maybe like two weeks ago and we're sitting on the beach and I was thinking about this. And one of my relatives had mentioned how they had liked one of the episodes and certain context, certain context they were getting from it. And they were also telling me their memory of that specific event. Nice. Yeah. And
00:30:37
Speaker
And when I heard their story, there were similarities, but there were so many things that were different from how they saw it than how I saw it. And when they saw it and explained it to me and they were able to articulate it and reiterate those moments, I thought to myself, I have to do this again. I have to do this again. And so what I'm going to do, as soon as I'm done finishing telling my story as the way I saw it, I'm going to very much bring in
00:31:06
Speaker
my friends and relatives and people who were around in that timeframe. And we will go back and survey and pick out moments and say, well, what do you remember about that? How did you feel about that? Where were you guys in this moment? And there will be people that will
00:31:24
Speaker
who will be able to affirm certain moments, have entirely different competing ideas, have entirely different individual memories of a thing. And I really do think that having more perspective on a thing is better than having an isolated idea, which is what I'm trying to give is this experience.
00:31:44
Speaker
I want people to understand that there are very, very much real people on the back end of these things. When I tell the stories of my mother or my father or my brothers or whoever, that those are real people and these are people that have experienced a real life.
00:32:02
Speaker
and they're still experiencing things every day today. So I felt that creating a system, creating like a coffee with an Indian black type of scenario would allow me to have a deeper conversation for the people that want to have that. Now, coffee with an Indian is amazing. Go listen to it, please. You'll like it. I hope you will.
00:32:25
Speaker
And as you're listening to it, know that if that's your personality, if that's something that you like and it's palatable for you, awesome. I hope it is. I hope you learned something about what we're talking about and what I'm discussing as far as tribal people and cultures and communities and families. But if you want to know more, if you want to know the longer version of that story, the more comprehensive version of that story, the one that is
00:32:53
Speaker
untethered it's, it's not, um, it's not, it's not easy to digest. Then please listen to coffee with an Indian black. I guarantee you.
00:33:05
Speaker
I guarantee you that I will always tell the truth and, and be forthright about that. And there's a lot of things that just because I'm discussing it from a tribal cultural perspective, understand that my perspective is never to, to not tell the story, not at the expense of my family, not at the expense of anything like that. I'm going to tell the story and I'm not going to hold back. So I just, I go. And so there, there are people that,
00:33:32
Speaker
Even my relatives, for example, that I'm discussing in the podcast, they'll make comments to me afterwards and they'll say, wow, you really threw my business out in the street. And I tell them that's the story. This is the story. This is where we are.
00:33:53
Speaker
I really do believe in that high degree of transparency and I want that for my community. I want that for my family and the spiritual centers in which we operate in because there's so much that has occurred historically for my people across the country who
00:34:16
Speaker
who've been conditioned to be a certain way. And maybe we don't realize that, or maybe because we just don't discuss things like that.
00:34:24
Speaker
And that type of conditioning has created the imbalances or the irregularities in our natures. And I really do believe that focusing on the avenues in which we communicate, the way in which we tell our stories, the way in which we're mobilizing and using our words and languages will only strengthen our ability to find that peace within ourselves. And so I'm hoping that this podcast
00:34:56
Speaker
If anything encourages other tribal people who want to listen to things like this or do different things, not even tribal people, anybody in general, anybody, whoever listens to it says, you know what? I have a story. I have a life. I have things in my life that are just like this. I didn't grow up on a reservation. I grew up in some other place around the world and I feel that way with the things that I deal with every day. And those stories are just as critical or as important. And so the tribal part is just my, my identity, but
00:35:25
Speaker
That's where it is. So I have two versions, Coffee with an Indian, Coffee with an Indian Black. You can get Coffee with an Indian on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play.
00:35:36
Speaker
Hopefully Spotify pretty soon. And then Spotify is tough. Yeah, I'm hoping so. My fingers are crossed. So I'm hoping to see what happens there. And then Patreon obviously for Coffee with an Indian Black. So if you want to listen to more of that, please listen to it and subscribe. I'd love to communicate with you too. And at any particular point,
00:35:56
Speaker
If anybody out there, you want to communicate or talk or if you have suggestions or anything, I mean, I'm open to everything. So we're going to go back in. We're going to tell some more stories. We're going to do that. And eventually we'll get to that beautiful place where we are right now in this moment, which is where we're having panels and having conversations. And so I'm hoping to take on a lot of different types of mechanisms of this podcast. So I'm really excited about that.
00:36:18
Speaker
Okay. Well, let's take our final break and then we'll come back and wrap up this discussion on coffee with an idiot. If you haven't checked it out yet, pause the podcast. I mean, listen to our ads and sponsors, but pause the podcast and then go check it out and come back. And we'll wrap the discussion with Brian Melendez back in a second.
00:36:38
Speaker
Hey, podcast fans and digital archaeologists. Have you heard about WildNote? It's a data collection app that works online or offline on your smartphone or tablet, iOS or Android. It allows you to collect field data easily, manage data efficiently and generate data reports and site records effortlessly. We have a growing list of state site forms built in for your use and some generic forms that will work anywhere. Check out the shovel testing and photograph forms. You can get a free all access 30 day trial today by going to wildnoteapp.com.
00:37:07
Speaker
That's WildNoteApp.com for your free 30-day trial. Now back to the show.
00:37:18
Speaker
Okay, welcome back to The Archaeology Show, episode 48, and we are talking with Brian Melendez from the Coffee with an Indian podcast. And Brian, so you sort of alluded to this a little bit in the last segment near the end there, but what has been the overall reception from your family and friends?
Community Reception
00:37:36
Speaker
And before you answer that,
00:37:37
Speaker
I want to know, and I think I know the answer to this just based on what you've said so far and what podcasts I've heard, are you changing any names or anything when you give them? I haven't heard last names. It's not like I'm going to go look them up, but are you changing any of those details? Not really. No. So what's been the reception? Because I mean, you live amongst your family and friends like we all do, so they're probably listening to your stuff because you're telling them to. What's the feedback, the real feedback?
00:38:05
Speaker
You know, that's a great question. That's a great question and it has a lot of different dimension to it. First, let me start off that question by saying that tribal communities are extremely homogenous. So for people that don't understand what tribal communities look like, they're communities where people grow up together and they live their whole lives together. And one day they'll die and, you know, they'll have children or they'll have all different types of experiences, but they're all doing them within their communal centers. So those types of experiences,
00:38:36
Speaker
they really just compound every other type of strange encounter that you'll have with each other forever, as long as you're there. So there are people that know who you were when you were a child. There are people that know who you were when you got married to so-and-so. There are people that were there when you got divorced. There are people that were there with you when your guys' best friend died or something. So these are people who are aware of certain aspects. Now,
00:39:01
Speaker
Does that mean they're 100% aware of all actual incidences in your life? Maybe not, but they are aware of you and you're aware of them in the same breath. So there are moments where people are very much concerned with each other's stories because our impacts on each other are very great. So in these stories, as I'm telling the narratives, I'm not changing any name.
00:39:28
Speaker
So I talk about my mom, I discuss her name, my brother's names, like all these people, cause they're very real people. Yeah. And.
00:39:38
Speaker
I don't change any of their names. I want to make sure that I am expressing to the world that these people are very real people. I want the people to know that these are very real people, just like who I am in the depth of me as a human being. I want them to understand the depth of these people. And so the reception that I've gotten from my family is everybody that I've talked to in my family, my relatives,
00:40:05
Speaker
I have, I have, I've had in the past, I've had seven or six episodes, seven said the seventh episode will be launched hopefully tomorrow. And I've had hundreds and hundreds of downloads, right? I mean, I've got, it's a lot in the past couple months. I mean, I have seven, 800 downloads in the, in the last, yeah, in the last like two months. So I mean, it's, it's moving. So in, in those downloads and the people that are listening and, and being a part of that story,
00:40:36
Speaker
I haven't heard any negative critiques, not one, from the tribal people that have listened to the thing, people that are my family or not my family. And there are a lot of people that are resonating with the idea of it and just the cold calculated truth part of it, right? Just to tell the story because there's people that are playing different roles in the story.
00:41:03
Speaker
you know, whether they're the mother or the brother or the grandma or the grandpa or whatever this, whatever that person is. So my, my mother, I talk about my mom in the beginning and I talk about her a lot throughout the story because she, she, like a lot of us help to define our, our stories. And if I tell the beginning story and people listen to my mom, people might come back later and say, wow,
00:41:33
Speaker
That wasn't a really great mother. She must not have been a great mother.
00:41:40
Speaker
none of us, none of us are like that, right? That's not our real life. And so when I first decided that I wanted to start a podcast, I started listening to podcasts. And when I started listening to podcasts, I started listening to all these different podcasts. And you know what I found, Chris? I found that there was this giant cultural divide between people that start podcasts and how I started a podcast, right? Because when people start podcasts, like if you listen to any kind of podcasts and there's all different types of podcasts, but
00:42:10
Speaker
somebody will always start off with an introduction and they'll say, here's so-and-so and so-and-so here, worked for X company XYZ and they had 10 years in a Fortune 500 company and they come from this and they did it and they talk about all of these things they've done.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like this giant like list of this status that it's already kind of provided for you. So when you listen to them, you almost have to say, okay, well they have all the status. Obviously they know what they're talking about. There's all this credential there. So obviously they are the ones to know because they already have these things now.
00:42:43
Speaker
I'm coming from a tribal background and I'm coming from these communities that our status and our social equity is not built on the idea that we come from wealth or Fortune 500 companies. It's not built on the idea that somebody had given us these things or said,
00:42:59
Speaker
My dad never showed up and said, hey, I'm gonna loan you 500 grand and you're gonna go make a thing. It didn't happen that way. So I couldn't start the story that way. And because that is not a cultural practice of tribal people to ever lead a story that way, that's not why I did it. Because if I was to take a podcast and say, hi, I'm Brian Melendez, I'm Northern Southern Paiute Western Shoshone and I have three degrees and I can do this and I can do this and I can do this, I wouldn't have, people would have hated it.
00:43:28
Speaker
My people would have hated it. My tribal people would have looked at it and said, Oh, we don't like him. We don't like how he talks. We don't like his, his ideas. We don't like the way he feels about a thing. And there would have been all different types of interpretations of me as a human being from my people. And that would have completely deregulated my ability to, to do what I'm doing today. So I had to take an entirely like real approach.
00:43:53
Speaker
as my cultural understanding dictates to not really, I guess, minimize myself, but to really come at it from a real human place and let my people know who I am. I have to show myself to my people to let them know that I'm just them, I'm with them, I am of them, and I don't believe that I'm better than anybody.
00:44:22
Speaker
And so I guess in those types of creations of a podcast is very much different than a lot of the other podcasts that I'd ever listened to where people are like, I do all these things and I'm awesome. And there's this awesome thing that I'm doing. We just don't do that. That's really not what we do. And culturally, that's just not what we do. So there are these cultural nuances that I discussed throughout the podcast where I'm talking about, you know, whether it's the historical value of the tribes themselves, you know, I'm trying to give certain accounts where
00:44:52
Speaker
whether it's a historical issue, whether it's some type of anecdote or whether it's some type of lesson learned throughout the story, that's what I'm doing. And so because my family in the community that I work with understand that this is happening,
00:45:06
Speaker
the probably the funniest thing that has occurred so far is people have been, I guess, inquiring my family or relatives or people that listen to it. They're just inquiring as to when they're going to be mentioned. Right. So when's my episode coming? Exactly. Like, when's my episode coming? And when are you going to throw my business out in the street? You know? And so those things happen. Right. And so I make it a point because
00:45:29
Speaker
There are so many things we learn from people. We learn so much from the people we're around and they may not even understand how much they impact us in our lives. Some people in our lives may not understand how the thing they said or the thing they did really, really made some type of impact on our story and life.
Community Concerns about Story Sharing
00:45:49
Speaker
And so I want to make sure that when I go through these stories, I am mentioning these people and I'm telling, talking about them as this thing progresses. And so
00:46:00
Speaker
throughout the whole duration of this, there will be people like that throughout the story and they don't know who they are. And the other funny part about it too is I've had those same people that know they're going to be in the story. Cause you know, as, as we all have like major life events.
00:46:15
Speaker
there are people who know that when I get to that point in the story and I haven't got there yet, they're, they're more than likely going to be, you know, implicated or, or discussed in the story. And so I've had people say, Hey, look, before you do this thing, you got to, you know, run it by me and tell them, and I just laugh. I'm like, I'm telling you anything. I'm not, I'm not telling you anything. Nobody's going to get that, that type of creative discretion. You're, you're not going to be able to ship that away or make it polished or beautiful. Right.
00:46:42
Speaker
That's not what I want. I don't want a polished and beautiful story. I don't want it that way in the sense that it's this romantic idea. No, it's very raw and it's very uncomfortable. And coming from like a spiritual place, my philosophy is that almost all the learning that we'll ever do that really means anything comes from this really uncomfortable space.
00:47:06
Speaker
So, I really like the idea of having something that throws us off kilter just enough to learn a thing. Have you noticed, thinking about these people that know their point in the stories coming up, have you noticed anyone interacting with you differently since you started the podcast? That's a great question as well. Yes, I have. Yes, I have. It's almost like if I see these people that know they're going to be in the story,
00:47:33
Speaker
they'll talk to me and they'll laugh and they'll give me a little bit, or maybe even they'll go back into a story because they'll say, Hey, remember that time this and this and that happened? Yeah, exactly. Hey, remember that awesome time we had? Remember we had fun over there? Remember when you were a kid, I gave you five bucks, you know? And so it's like, you're not going to, um, to be able to buy me off, right? Cause this thing's happening. And so the beauty of it though, the beauty of it, Chris, for me is the, is the fact that,
00:48:00
Speaker
We all have our own personalities, our own personas, the way that we manage our lives and ourselves and our relationships. The way that I've been able to have those conversations or communication with the people in my life, I've always been a very...
00:48:20
Speaker
forward person. So my ability to just say what I need to say is not, it's not this like strange process that I'm only able to do on, on a podcast, but it's just what I do in life. So that I'm saying whatever it is that I'm saying and I'm recording it, it's just me recording it because usually it would just be me saying whatever I'm going to say to my relative anyway. So I'm just happening to record it and you know, put it together, make sure that it's catalog for somebody in the future.
00:48:49
Speaker
And so those things do occur. People who want to be involved and want to continue down this path, I've had a lot of really good communication in the past couple months since I've got started, where I've had people that I don't regularly see that say, hey, look, I would love to work with you on this thing. I love the idea of it.
00:49:12
Speaker
I love that. And I've had other people come to me and say, man, I want to do that too. Like how do I do that too? How can I do these things? And I really enjoy that as well. And I'm telling them the same thing. I'm like, I don't know. I barely know what I'm doing with this stuff. Like I'm learning as I'm going and I'm trying to put it all together. But for anybody who's ever going to start something like that, we don't always know what it's going to look like.
00:49:38
Speaker
I can listen to my, I can listen to my first podcast that I created and the last one that I did. And I can tell you like, where, how much, how much more experience I had in that process than when I, when I created the first one. And I look at the first one, I cringe. I'm like, Oh my God, I did that. You know, I really wish I wouldn't have done that. And then I move forward and it works out in a better way. So those things occur in the family and the people.
00:50:05
Speaker
Even if the story is told where sometimes people are a little scathed and they're not getting out of this thing unbeaten, there are parts in the story where those people are very much heroes in their own way. There is no people in my story that are ever painted to be these really despicable evil characters because that's not the way of it. There are people who have
00:50:35
Speaker
all kinds of beautiful things inside of them. And they have a lot of dark stuff inside of them too. And so even when I'm telling the story for the people that are going to listen to it in the beginning, and even if they're listening to the story about like my mother and how she performs.
00:50:50
Speaker
There are parts of the story we haven't even got to yet where I'm so excited to be able to tell that story about her life and how she ended up in the place and where she ended up. And so there are, there are beautiful stories there and there are lessons there. And so one of the things that I did on the podcast, which I didn't know I was going to do until I started doing it, which was every episode that I do, I have seven breaks throughout the whole podcast.
00:51:19
Speaker
where I have a segment called, and it's just kind of like a little food for thought kind of moment. And I call it the lesson learned. So after a thing had occurred, if it was a really critical part of the story, or there was something that I can remember as far as it being a, maybe like a major life event or something that kind of occurred, I will take a break in the podcast and I'll say, the lesson learned.
00:51:42
Speaker
you know, don't eat cheese before noon or whatever it is, right? Don't, don't walk in dark alleys at night or something, but something that has a little bit more substance to it that is really specific because I believe that there are people who are listening to this podcast and there will be people that listen to it in the future that we don't always have to have a rough life. We can learn from lots of stories and lots of experiences and not have to do that.
00:52:09
Speaker
So I'm hoping that by sharing that the experience as it was, but also like some positive, like constructive lesson learned from it, that people understand that we are not subjugated to our experiences in life where we, where we were just helpless that we really do.
00:52:27
Speaker
We really do have opportunities to learn and construct and create and make things from the lives that have been given to us. And so the lesson learned is just my ability to tell the world that I learned a lesson here, wasn't good, wasn't bad. Maybe it wasn't even, who knows what it was. This thing is really abstract and so not my life, but
00:52:49
Speaker
I learned something from it and I think that the lesson learned portions of it, for me anyway, is my give back. Is my give back to my children or anybody who listens to it to understand that if you are out there and you're living a life like that or you come from places like that or you understand certain things like that,
00:53:12
Speaker
I don't want you to ever feel that you're helpless. I want you to understand that you can shift this. You can make anything you want to make if you really want to. There are people who have those hardships and they find a way. I want that for you too. I want to let you know that I know people say this sometimes. Some people say, man, if I can make it, then
00:53:34
Speaker
I haven't even made it. I still very much, I still very much live, you know, this life where I'm just trying to tell, tell whatever my story is, but I'm alive and every day I'm alive. And so when people ask me, well, how are you doing today? I'm at a grocery store or something's like, how are you doing today? I'm like, I'm alive. I'm happy. I'm alive. Can't beat that, right? Like that's my, that's my, like, that's my major saying in life is like, I'm alive. Can't beat that. Cause I'm alive. I'm just happy to be alive. And so,
00:54:01
Speaker
You know, I want to be able to share those lessons. I believe that for every life we have, we have, you know, some type of responsibility to the people around us so that way they can, they can learn something and not repeat those things. You know, and I think until we absolutely learn the lessons, we will continue to, to have those universal, you know, circumstances repeat over and over and over and over again until something shall occur. So I'm hoping that this podcast and the whole exercise of doing this will
00:54:32
Speaker
provide certain types of solace or information to people out there. One, whether it's information about tribal people in general. Two, whether it's about the historical content of the tribal people in your communities. And three, understanding that
00:54:46
Speaker
This is not a fairy tale of Hollywood. This is not a Western Hollywood motion picture where we're seeing people who operate in the early 1800s and they're in TVs and they're really just kind of these mythical beings.
Countering Stereotypes in Media
00:55:04
Speaker
But we're very much here and trying to operate within larger society, but also maintaining our culture and land and language and customs and everything else about us
00:55:15
Speaker
where we're trying to maintain our identity and also have greater range in all circles. And so that's what I hope that people will get from this. And I want to be able to leave them with that.
00:55:30
Speaker
Nice. Well, I think you're doing a great job. The podcast is, uh, it's entertaining and inspiring, I think. Um, and I love those little lesson learned, you know, outtakes sort of not outtakes, but like kind of breaks in the story, you know? Um, it just, uh, it just lets you, I think it, I think, especially when you're telling a really intense story, it helps to break those out every once in a while and just take a break and say, okay, from here on up to this point, this is what I learned. This is the lesson learned and then keep on going. And then here's another lesson learned. I really liked that approach to it.
00:56:00
Speaker
It has to be because as I'm like telling the story and I'm thinking about it, it's like, Oh, so-and-so just died, right? And then you can't, like, it's really hard to transition from the story. It's like, Oh, I'm somebody died. And it's like, well, here I am riding on a bike. I don't understand. I don't understand. Like, didn't somebody just die? Like, what are you doing on the bike? You know what I mean? So it's, it's really difficult. And so the, uh, the lesson learned is, is a bill. It's a really good transition point for me to just shift. Yeah, it's good.
00:56:28
Speaker
Okay. Well, that's all the time we have for this podcast. So everybody go out and listen to Coffee with an Indian, find it on Patreon and shell out a few bucks for some awesome episodes, some expanded content, but certainly try out all the other sources first. Now your website real fast in the last couple of minutes here is lucentry.com. That'll be in the show notes for the spelling, but give me the quick backstory behind why it's called that. Where does that come from?
00:56:55
Speaker
So Lucentry, the job, I recently left the federal government in May. And so since then I've been operating an independent consulting firm, Lucentry, right? So Lucentry is...
00:57:09
Speaker
Lucentree is all the things in which I want to be able to do to help tribal people and communities. So I took Lucent, which is this bright idea in tree, which is the tree. And in our ceremonies, in our culture, there's so much it revolves around like that tree and the life and the dancing and all of those things. So it just came together. Lucentree, for me, which is a source of information for communities. And so
00:57:34
Speaker
right now what I do is I have the podcasts and I do independent consulting and I work with tribes and communities and trying to... 50% of my job is helping individuals find whatever balance they need for in their lives and whether it's through free thinking type of spirituality or meditation. And then the other half of it is community building and tribal governance. So I have this really
00:58:02
Speaker
interesting balancing act of holistic approaches to governance where it's not your run of the mill, typical governing. And so there are different ways to do a thing. And so now that I have this entity and I work out of it, I can
00:58:17
Speaker
basically train tribes and help communities do all the things that nobody else is going to help them do. And even in the former job that I was at, you know, I want to be able to help people to understand there are other ways to do things. And it really just comes down to how creative you can be. Okay. Right. So that's, that's what I do now. And so my hope is to stay busy and work with lots of people. And I love working with people, all people, and, and I'm, and I'm really looking forward to this. Thank you, Chris, for bringing me on here. And I loved having coffee with you and doing this. So thank you.
00:58:47
Speaker
Well, likewise, and again, check out Brian's website. Again, it's linked in the podcast, but looseintreat.com and forward slash podcast, if you want to go straight to the podcast and that will link you to everywhere that you could find it. So find everything about Brian on there and listen to the podcast and give us some feedback. Tell us what you think and I can get that on to Brian, but definitely go over and leave comments on his episodes and wherever you listen to the podcast as well. So Brian, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much, Chris.
00:59:19
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Archaeology Podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. You can provide feedback using the contact button on the right side of the website at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com or you can email chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.
00:59:35
Speaker
Please like and share the show wherever you saw it so more people can have a chance to listen and learn. Send us show suggestions and follow ArcPodNet on Twitter and Instagram. This show was produced by the archaeology podcast network. Opinions are solely those of the hosts and guests of the show. However, the APN stands by their hosts. Special thanks to the band C Hero for letting us use their song, I Wish You'd Look. Check out their albums on Bandcamp at chero.bandcamp.com.
00:59:59
Speaker
Check out our next episode in two weeks, and in the meantime, keep learning, keep discovering new things, and keep listening to the archaeology podcast network. Have an awesome day.
01:00:14
Speaker
This show is produced and recorded by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.